


Untether

by amoama



Category: Original Work
Genre: Age Difference, Community: smut_fest, Multi, Other, Threesome - M/M/Other, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-30
Updated: 2013-11-30
Packaged: 2018-01-03 01:41:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1064184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amoama/pseuds/amoama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The country of Fruling is now independent after generations of Occupation. Instead of freedom for all however, Fruling's archaic caste system is resurrected with renewed vigour, leaving many trapped. Maid-servant Ellis is transitioning to male with the help of his boss's son, Rees. Meanwhile Kelly is an Undocumented, surviving at the bottom of society, but his past ties him to Rees and a chance encounter with Ellis means that his life is about to change, or society has to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untether

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sinuous_curve](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinuous_curve/gifts).



> mentions of prostitution and parental death
> 
> Thank you so much to the samuraiter for betaing! 
> 
> For sinuous_curve/saystheheart

  
Ellis tries to remember to lengthen his stride and not give a shit about anyone else on the pavement. He won't dodge out the way for anyone. It's not remembering he's a man that's difficult, that's natural, that part feels good. It's remembering he's a _rich guy_ that's the problem. He's not in a hurry, he has the whole afternoon before he has to be back at work, and he's already done the main job of visiting his mother and giving her a bit of pay to keep her going. Despite years spent managing the infamous _Vi's Place_ , she was always desperate for cash. His money will cover the heat for her room, at least. He hates to think of her shivering in that place all day, not now that she's getting older and there's fewer ways to stay warm.

Ellis puts his mother from his mind. He's done what he can for today, and that's his _other_ life, not Ellis's. Ellis is rich, or, rather, able to pass as rich. He's got a three-piece-suit and cufflinks that could keep the woman he just left in heating for a year. Rich Guy Ellis would have just moved his mother into some high-mod apartment perhaps and would now be really pleased with himself. He lights himself a cigarette as he walks out of the Rotlic District he used to call home. He stops at the very edge. There's a café he used to come to, back when he didn't work for the Brennermans and had access to such fancy clothes and a generous friend to let him borrow them. The café, _Le Plutarch_ , has one foot in Ellis's district, and one in a quickly developing neighbouring district. The prices aren't prohibitive, and Ellis always found it a nice place to come and dream.

Ellis orders a coffee, black with an extra shot, and sits down at an outdoor table. He'll have a lot of work waiting for him when he goes back, so the coffee is needed, as well as posturing. He sips it slowly and glances around, wondering how he fits in. No one seems to be looking at him too conspicuously. There aren't any furtive glances questioning who the hell he is or why he thinks he can sit and drink here. It's mostly men, the ones with time for coffee-drinking, and they don't seem at all ruffled by his presence. He smiles into his coffee, the idea that he's got away with it swelling up from his belly. He wishes Rees were here so they could laugh about it, Ellis knows he would be even more daring if Rees were here. Rees would make him talk to someone, at least. He looks at the faces of all the other customers, trying to decide who Rees would pick out for him to talk to. It would be the most intimidating choice, of course.

It's then that Ellis notices a man leaning on the wall on the far side of the road. Staring at him. The man is clearly one of the Undocumented. Something about the way he holds himself, or his dirt-dusty skin, or the clothes he wears, make him instantly identifiable to Ellis. Undocumented: _Undesirable, Untouchable_. A man defined by all the things he is not. The kind of person Ellis usually tries not to notice. But he's a real bruiser of a guy. Ellis could fold himself into this guy two and a half, maybe three times. He's immense, and his eyes bore into Ellis. It suddenly feels like all that effort, all the taping and binding and dressing up, haven't made a difference at all. Ellis is naked on the street in front of this man, and there's nowhere to hide.

Ellis gets up and leaves his money on the table. He's hurrying towards home before the waiter notices he's gone. He walks fast, head down, trying hard not to cry at all the wasted hope and belief crashing down around him. He can picture the man, see the dirty overalls that mark out men who work the night shift digging new metro tunnels, details Ellis hardly had time to observe, and yet they're fixed in his mind. He checks to see if he's being followed. There's no one, and surely such a brute would have trouble staying out of view. Ellis has no idea what it was that gave him away to that Undocumented. All he knows is that he had to get away before someone exposed him for the farce he is.

He flies past Rees as he enters the house. Rees has clearly been lingering about the servant's entrance, waiting for Ellis, who runs up the back stairs, mercifully empty, and flings his door shut behind him, locks it to keep Rees out. He flings himself on the bed and lets out a howl of frustration. It's never enough! He bangs his fists against the mattress a couple of times, and then composes himself. He gets back off the bed and slowly, inevitably, begins to take his clothes off, shrugging himself out of the suit, the smart shirt, the briefs. Lastly, he unravels the binding tape, releasing his breasts. They're small, but they bounce free, mocking him with their perkiness. He puts on his work uniform. The pinafore dress is mandatory for the maids here. Sometimes, Ellis wears a binder under his dress, as a small expression of his true identity, but he can't right now. Ellis looks for himself in the mirror, but it's Elize who looks back, distraught in the face of reality.

 

 

Kelly heard the words out of nowhere as he stood fastening his jacket in the short hallway of Vi Walker's brothel. It was a small place, not up on its luck, which is why it welcomed people like Kelly, as long as he paid up front. It sounded like the teasing voice of one of Vi's younger girls: "Come again soon, Mr. Brennerman."

"Keep your big mouth shut, Lou," came the quick-tempered response, followed by the door snapping shut.

The name "Brennerman" is what jolts Kelly out of his post-orgasm haze. He is alert and out the door in seconds, scanning the street for the owner of the name. Ten yards down the road, he spots him. No mistaking the expensive cut of the coat in this poor neighbourhood. Mr. Brennerman is just a boy, from the size of him. _The son, then_ , Kelly thinks, _Rees_. Then, _Shit that guy is basically royalty, what the hell is he doing in Vi's_?

Kelly follows Brennerman without even thinking about it. There weren't any other Brennermans Kelly knew of, didn't mean they weren't out there, he supposed, but Kelly didn't really stop to consider that. His mind was crowding with stories his father had told him. Almost every story his father had that didn't relate to his mother involved his best friend, Vinz Graaf-Brennerman. Everything good about Fruling, everything his father missed while living in exile with his mother, seemed to be orientated around his friend, Vinz. When he was small, Kelly had often wished he had a friend like Vinz, he sometimes pretended to himself that he did. His father had told him about Vinz's son, only a little bit older than Kelly himself. "You boys would have been brilliant friends, I bet," his Da had told him, lost in his own memories. The name Brennerman had dragged Kelly back to this country just as much as his own sense of isolation after his parents were killed.

Just as he was drawn back to Fruling, Kelly is drawn after the boy with the name Brennerman. He watches the boy's assertive stride falter occasionally, and can't help himself from wondering who he fucked, whether they've both fucked the same girl in the past, or whether this is Brennerman's first trip into Rotlic district.

Unsurprisingly, he is being led towards the more affluent districts of the city, but, before they can cross into an area where Kelly's likely to get picked up by police just for darkening the sidewalk, the kid stops. He enters _Le Plutarch_ , a café that thinks a little bit too much of itself for Kelly's liking. Kelly has no chance getting served there. He settles against a lamppost to wait it out, but Brennerman ends up sitting outside with his drink. At least he doesn't light up a cigarette like most of the other posers in the little courtyard. Kelly gets a good look at him now. Rees Brennerman should be about three or four years older than Kelly, but from the front, it's hard to place his age. This guy doesn't look as young as Kelly had imagined from following behind his slight figure. Kelly watches intently, wondering what clues to take from the way he worshipfully imbibes his coffee and the quick, nervy flashing of his eyes around the café.

Before Kelly's had time to really take him in though, he's caught staring. There's something like recognition in Brennerman's eyes, barely leaving room for the same revolted expression that almost everyone gets, that generic distaste for all Undocumenteds that Kelly would like not to take personally. Instead, he seems to hollow out, like every ounce of spirit and personality just drops out of him. Suddenly, Kelly doesn't know who he's looking at, he's confused by his former certainty that this was Rees Brennerman, one of the _Fiirst_ , Fruling's highest caste.

The guy is gone in seconds, on the run from Kelly. Kelly can't conceive of how a stranger, not Brennerman, could have had such a reaction to him, even as an Undocumented. He couldn't possibly know anything about who Kelly is, surely. Kelly follows as carefully as he can, still compelled, despite his confusion. He stretches the distance between them to the furthest possible reach. He feels more like he's chasing a sprite than a real person, just the essence of some _thing_ disappearing round corners ahead of him. They're going through boroughs Kelly really shouldn't get caught in; he has to look out for police, and even just pedestrians who could get offended by his presence. He doesn't let it stop him, though. He has to find out where this person came from.

(())

Rees is stunned by the look on Ellis's face as he runs past, up to his room. Ellis barely even saw Rees waiting there to hear how the trip went. Obviously, it didn't go well. Rees doesn't know what to do. He hadn't conceived of a situation where Ellis would come home anything but enthused and delighted by the adventure. How long had it taken Rees to convince Ellis that it would work out, that it would feel good, that it would be liberating and fun? Rees runs up the stairs after Ellis. He is desperate to know what happened, trying to figure out what he can say to comfort him.

He waits outside the room, barely managing to restrain himself from clawing at the door. Eventually, he hears the click of the latch unlocking. He scrambles to his feet, but it's Elize that emerges, back in uniform.

"El-," he begins, but El holds up his hand to stop him.

"Don't, Rees, darling, it's okay, it didn't work out, that's all. I'll return your clothes tomorrow, once they're cleaned."

"Don't, El, they're yours, they were a gift."

El moves his hand to Rees's cheek, pulls him into a hug, briefly giving into their mutual grief. The sadness is back on his face, that hopelessness he'd wanted so badly to see banished forever.

"I've got work to do," he tells Rees, and presses the cufflinks into Rees's hand. He knows there's no point offering to help today.

"God, El, what happened?"

"Come find me later, baby," he says, and then he falters, like he doesn't know quite what he's asking. "Come find me."

 

 

There's a laundry annex at the back of the house, near the servants entrance where the boy had run in earlier, and Kelly holes up in there, ready to jump down and squeeze between the washing machines if he has to. He can fit, just, it probably won't stop him getting caught if someone needs to put some laundry on, but he figures he's safe for the night. It has a small window, and he peers out carefully while trying to keep himself in shadow as much as possible. He's missing his shift on the metro crew right about now, and that means he's going to have one too many black marks against his name. Getting more shifts is going to be tough after this, he'll probably get put back on sewer maintenance, but he can't leave.

Slowly, the activity in the big house lessens as night creeps on. For at least an hour, he keeps watch while all the lights are out. He's just thinking of giving up and getting some sleep when a light comes back on at a small window on the second floor. There are two figures, framed by the light. He can see them quite clearly, knows that one is Rees, the real Rees who he only caught briefly when the boy flew past him into the house. He'd been too far away to see much, but he'd still been able to tell. Rees was taller and younger than his impersonator, his hair was blonde, and his skin fairer still. His nose was longer. Everything about him screamed inter-marriage of the highest caste, the same way every one of Kelly's features told his story: squalid ruffian, no last name; right down to his twice-broken nose. Not that it was the whole story, in Kelly's case, but it may as well have been.

Now, Kelly watches the way Rees moves. A ruffian with no access to education shouldn't know the word lithe, or lissome, or svelte, but Kelly was bequeathed his caste by virtue of events, not lineage. He can't help but note the controlled power contained in Rees's graceful movements around the small room. He looks unhappy; his gestures are appealing to the other person in the room -- a woman in boyish pants and a t-shirt, breasts hanging loose under it. She's turned away from the window, head down. Kelly thinks she might be crying.

There's one moment when Rees turns his head sharply to the window, as if he thinks he might be watched. Kelly freezes, trusting to his instincts not to move and call attention to himself. He trusts the lights inside the house to keep Rees blind to the outside. Rees goes back to pacing.

The night takes on a dream-like quality for Kelly. He puts his headphones in, giving up his need to stay alert to intruders. This is as safe as it ever gets for Kelly, really. He plays music his mother liked, classical, orchestral. Kelly loves how it swells around him, covers him like a blanket. He usually listens to it when he's working underground, dirt-blackened and sweaty, dizzy with the heat and the smell of heavy machinery. The music soars over the noise, reminds him that beautiful things exist outside of the dark tunnels. Now he feels transported far beyond those tunnels where he should be doing his shift. Instead he's watching something sad and sweet play out before him in this grand, Fruling Townhouse. As much as he knows that it's weird and creepy for him to be out here, he can't help but feel connected.

He stays where he is until the couple in the room above him fall into each other's arms. They sit together on the bed, leaning close. Finally, Kelly has a clear view of the other person. It's the same face from earlier, the face he was so sure was Rees's, until it wasn't. Now, he sees a femininity to the face that he hadn't caught before. Kelly breathes out his understanding in an "Oh" of surprise. He thinks of the boy who'd left the brothel, not Rees at all, but clearly in his clothes, assuming his name. Kelly wonders at that boy and this woman being the same person. He doesn't know which one is the more truly felt, which it hurts more to be or to deny. Kelly is nineteen and fully grown, he's regularly mistaken for much older because of his 6'4" size. He's been on his own, hiding from his past for seven years now, all told. Undocumented and undesired. He knows he can never be anything else, everything in Fruling requires papers, statements of status that block him from most professions, from most people. But he just thinks, maybe, these Brennermans might remember his father the way his father remembered them. They might have told the same stories to their son. The simplest acknowledgement of his past, of his parents - now wiped from the record books - is all he's after. That's what he tells himself as he crouches in the darkness. He doesn't even know why. Just that it's important to be known by someone, after all these years.

It's the woman that pushes Rees backwards down to the bed, moves over him, and pushes his hair off his face. It's an almost motherly gesture, the same sentiment that Kelly manufactures with his mother's music. All Kelly knows about Rees Brennerman, _Fiirst-_ Brennerman, to give him his full title, is that he got to stay in Fruling and be brought up in his true caste. He's living the life Kelly might have had if his father hadn't been exiled for marrying his mother. Kelly isn't jealous, how can he be? He loved his mother, and she paid the ultimate price - as much as his father did, in the end. He misses her so much, and wishing he wasn't her son is the worst betrayal.

He watches the woman slide herself down Rees's body, he admires the slim stretch of Rees, and he feels like he could watch these two forever, but he turns away, not wanting to feel the inevitable hit of loneliness of being on the outside of something like this.

 

 

El could see Rees hadn't understood.

"What do you mean a man looked at you?" He'd asked, and El hadn't really been able to explain. Rees couldn't be expected to make sense of it. Rees was happy in his young man's body, confident of his place in society. The only worries Rees ever seemed to have were the one's he'd taken on from El. El felt bad sometimes, like some of Rees's wide-eyed contentment with life had been stolen when El showed him what was out there beyond his world of college and music and heroic parents.

El had come to the house eight years earlier, Fruling's war of independence had broken down the barriers of the caste system briefly, and El, despite his Servitor caste, had worked as a courier for Vinz Graf-Brennerman in the resistance. It was dangerous and terrifying, but it was Elize's first glimpse at freedom beyond his mother's brothel and menial work as a servant. He was heady with the idea of ending the occupation, of becoming something more. He was young enough to think all the problems of his life and his status were because of the occupiers. He drove his motorbike through the night bringing messages to the Graf, and out to other operatives, many of whose real names he never knew.

The end of the occupation and the forming of the new government constitution came as a shock to El. Badly educated and under-informed, he didn't know the caste tradition was one of the cornerstones of Fruling society before occupation. He'd thought all his problems would be over, he'd thought he could go to school, that he would feel like a real person, not a pitiful drudge. He'd thought he'd feel different as a free woman, rather than a subjugated one. And even that his dysphoria over his gender would lessen with Independence. Instead, he had found the freedom he'd fought for wasn't meant for him after all.

Graf-Brennerman brought Elize to his house to work as a maidservant, as a favour. "In recognition," he said, "of all the work you did for our country's freedom. You deserve to work in the best houses, for the best people."

He thought he was giving Elize the biggest reward _she_ could hope for.

When the alternative is the brothel, you take what you're offered.

Graf-Brennerman had not been a bad boss, and he had even protected Elize a number of times, when other men had shown unwanted interest in him. He'd wondered if Vinz wanted her for himself, but he hadn't.

Elize had worked here since he was twenty-four, eight years. Rees had been sixteen.

They had amazed each other back then. Rees had never known anyone like Elize, male or female. He had never met anyone so young who'd been allowed in the hallowed Resistance. Rees had watched the whole war play out from the top of the stairs, protected, even guarded, barely suffered to eavesdrop. Elize was tough and wild-looking. She had cropped hair, and her eyes never dropped in his presence like the other servants' did. In fact, they followed him everywhere. She responded when he asked her questions and laughed when he told her jokes while she worked. He sought her out around the house more and more, and she started getting him to help out with her chores, teach her spellings and lend her books.

Recklessly chasing Elize round the house one quiet afternoon, Rees hadn't known what gift he was giving when he gasped out, admitting defeat, "Sometimes you seem more like a boy then a girl. I give up."

He hadn't even meant it at as compliment.

But when Elize had turned to him and confessed, "I wish I was, most of the time," Rees had accepted it. It really wasn't such an odd thing to wish for, after all. He had made it easy for Elize, later, to admit, "I feel I am a man; inside, I'm male."

Saying it aloud, that first time, felt more freeing than any other moment since Fruling's Declaration of Independence.

Rees was the first person to shorten Elize's name to El, the one to encourage El to choose a name that fit better, still one of the only people to refer to El as he. It was more okay for someone of Rees's caste to be trans*. It wasn't the same for El. No one thought it was worth it to make Servitors feel more like their true gender on the outside or inside. They were a new society. There was no money for that, not if you couldn't pay yourself.

When Rees was nineteen, he started smuggling El drugs. El hadn't asked, although they'd talked about what was available. Rees had already been saving for more than a year. They went together to the Doctor who didn't ask to see papers.

More than anyone else in Ellis's life, Rees understands, he's been there, encouraging, supporting, and accepting from the beginning. Ellis doesn't really know if he'd even be alive without Rees.

It's just, there's still no way to say that the man he saw today had oozed such potent masculinity, had directed it so openly at Ellis, that "Ellis" had seemed to pop like a balloon in front of him, reduced to nothingness by being so thoroughly seen through.

Rees eventually gets it a little. He looks sad and frustrated at their failure. He always talks as though El's transition is something they're doing together.

"El, El, listen, am I any less a guy because of how fucking manly this guy was?"

El looks at him, and kind of wants to say yes, because Rees does look far less substantial in the light of the stranger's giant frame. But less substantial isn't less male, El knows.

"No," El allows.

"Right, so then it's the same for you. You might not be as manly-looking, as defined by what? Gender-norms? Fuck that, El, fuck that. How do you feel? Do you still feel male? You do, right? Then you're still a bloke inside, like before. Fuck. It's not the clothes, I know they help, but they're not it. How many times have I put on your pinafore and cavorted around to cheer you up? Did that make me female? No fear. I was still a dude because I felt like a dude inside, even while channeling my inner diva. That's not the same as how you feel in my suit, right? You're not channeling anything, you're expressing yourself."

El lets him keep talking. This is a conversation they've had over and over again, late into so many nights. Most of what Rees is spouting now came from El's lips originally. It comforts El to hear it, to be reminded of all the things they've both said and discussed and concluded together. Eventually El feels calmer, less ruffled and ripped open. Rees is doing what he always does, papering over the cracks, holding Ellis together where he feels like he might explode.

They end up sitting next to each other on the bed, arms around one another. It's not been a big deal today. Nothing major happened. Just one outing gone a little awry. There will be others. El had wanted to try being Ellis out in the real world without Rees. He's done it before, but not in the day time. Elize doesn't get many days off. Most of their adventures have been after dark, amongst friends, like-minded people who think the revolution didn't go far enough, who aren't convinced by Fruling's new post-colonial utopia.

Rees folds himself into El's arms, and El pushes him down on the bed. Their physical relationship is a constant re-negotiation. El's feelings towards Rees run the gamut from nurturing and protective to envious and possessive. El can't help always wanting to know what part of him Rees is responding to. The older woman? The Servitor he can help himself to with no legal repercussions? The friend he grew up with? The boy who owes him his very existence? There have been nights where El can't bear for Rees to touch his breasts, where El's lain face down, only able to let Rees have access to the neutrality of his back.

Mostly, though these days, El knows Rees will have him anyway he can, he's young and fearless, and El still hasn't found a way to scare him off. El's grateful for that.

"Let me look after you," El says as he pins Rees's wrists to the bed and moves his tongue down Rees's body. "Just stay still."

Rees knows when to behave himself in bed. He does it so very well. He makes El feel like the teacher, like he has control here. El just needs time to work out what's going to make them both feel good tonight.

Everything about Rees is perfect in both scale and proportion. El thinks about the man she saw today, about what it would be like to kiss that body, how thick and hard it would be. El shudders a little, a bit revolted by the idea. _Undocumented_ means unclean, means he probably works touching the dead bodies of animals and people, shovels shit in the sewers, digs underground for the city's new transport system. El knows exactly what it's like to be treated like dirt, he campaigns against it, but he still can't help the feeling of fear at the thought of such a feral man beneath him. Would he be yielding like Rees is now, or would he insist on taking, claiming, penetrating?

El's body responds to his fears by claiming Rees with his mouth, taking him down deep into his throat, then pulling his lips steadily back up Rees's long, thin cock. El takes his time, circling the tip and then sucking down again, steady, familiar movements that remind him how he loves this. The feel of it - how expressive it is - straining in his mouth. What an effect it has on Rees, whose body keens and arches. Rees's hips rise up and up in powerful movements that El has to restrain with one hand. Rees is making soft, helpless noises above El, biting down on one hand that El has allowed free. All their sex is quiet. They're fearful, not of discovery exactly, because who would think twice about the heir fucking the maid, but wary still of being disturbed and their fragile equilibrium being destroyed.

Rees comes in El's mouth, hot and shocky. His body trembles as El clambers back over him. His hands catch at El's waist. "What do you want, El?"

"Nothing, stay there," El assures him, one hand on his chest, feeling it rise and fall in big gulps, vainly trying to recover. El positions them hip to hip, lines his opening up over Rees's balls. Rees's sensitive cock is caught pushed up against his naval and El rubs his elongated clit down on Rees, cock to balls, making Rees shudder again in aftershock. El moves relentlessly, chasing his own release, looking down their bodies with satisfaction. It could almost be El's cock twitching inelegantly against Rees's belly. El grinds down hard and fast and comes with that thought foremost in his mind. He releases Rees's thoroughly used body to come up and kiss him.

"How was that, baby?" El asks, when he eventually slides off Rees, throwing one leg back over one of Rees's, so as not to lose contact completely.

"Good, that was good. Fuck." He kisses El. "Next time pull off earlier and I'll come with you like that, like we share my cock."

El uses energy he doesn't have to press a kiss into Rees's neck.

"You're beautiful, kid," El tells him, just to see him blush more over his already reddened face.

His eyes slide over to El, "Love you too and all, you dick."

 

 

Rees wakes up full of worries. He hates it when El is unhappy.

When they started this, Rees had been seventeen, he'd been in love with El for a year, lusting after Elize, desiring everything about her. It didn't bother him, Elize feeling like she was a man, he felt that too about Elize sometimes, she just seemed more male than female. It didn't stop Rees from wanting Elize, it was just one more element in his fascination. He started correcting his speech, referring to her as him in his mind, thinking of El's female body as one more thing keeping the real El at bay, same as his position as a Servitor in his house.

He took advantage of the fact that no one would think he was serious about El, promised his father he would use condoms and not upset El's work, and that was it for the parental chat.

Now, though, things are changing. Rees is having regular breakfast talks from his parents about finding a bride, continuing the family name. He's been going to weekly meetings at night with El about campaigning to break down caste barriers. The rows he's had with his parents about it have started to get them looking very worried. But, even if he could sell them on marriage outside their caste, and it's not that likely he can, even then it's not something he can do with Ellis. He can't persuade his parents marrying El is the only way to get themselves a grandchild when he's putting all of his efforts into giving El a male body to match his gender identity. Rees doesn't even think his father is against gay marriage in general, just when it comes to only sons and heirs. Being queer is the luxury of the second sons, but the closest person Rees has to a brother is El.

Rees is trapped, and he knows it. He knows what happens to people of his caste when they marry the wrong person. Every photo his father has of his childhood is torn in half, eliminating from existence his best friend who married the enemy. Foreigners are worse than Undocumenteds in Frulinger hierarchy. The Bezatrun occupiers were caste-less and unclean and bastards. His father once told him he was almost thrown out of the resistance because of his association with this collaborator. Rees has never seen one picture of him, but El says he saw him once. Or the back of him, leaving. El says he'd never seen Rees's father shaking with anger before, never seen him break down and cry. Rees can hardly imagine it.

Whenever they row about caste, it's his mother that engages, his father just goes silent and unreadable. It scares Rees a lot that he can't even discuss this with his father. It scares him that he can't imagine his life without El in it.

They sneak out to a meeting that evening. El is wary about dressing male after the disaster of the day before, but this is old ground for them. Rees wants to reboot El's confidence as quickly as possible, and the OpenSoc meetings are as inclusive as Fruling gets.

They let themselves out the servants' entrance like usual. Rees is dressed down in jeans and a hoodie, El has done the same, but he's somehow still sharper-looking. Rees marvels at how El does it; El is a live wire, and he brings that powerful energy to everything that he does. Rees lets his hand rest low on El's back as they walk and tries to shake off the pressures that being the only Brennerman heir bring him. It's crisp out, and he lets the cool breeze seep into him and clear out the clutter and worry in his head.

Kelly follows them. He's had to admit to himself that he's hit creepy, stalker mode full on now. He can barely remember what came over him to begin with, but now, it's an obsession. He needs to get these two people to acknowledge him, something. He'd waited on the street all day, attempting to keep out of everyone's way. He was noticed by far too many passers-by, though, and glared at by most of them. It was a relief to see his subjects emerge into the lamp-lit street because he knows he wouldn't get away with another day waiting.

When they enter a small, unobtrusive hardware shop two districts over, Kelly takes some deep breaths and goes in after them. He's pretty sure he has nothing to lose. Prison is a bed and three good meals a day, after all.

There's a long corridor of nothing, through the back of the shop and into a garage area at the rear. He knows his progress is being monitored because there's a small camera at the end of the passageway, but no one comes out to stop him.

The heads of all the people in the room turn towards him the moment he enters. He can see the shock on the face of the boy from yesterday and the way he elbows Rees in the ribs, whispering urgently.

Kelly wants to speak to them, but he's approached by a tall woman with long blonde hair.

"Yes?" She asks, pointedly.

"I'm here for the meeting," Kelly hazards.

"How did you hear about us?"

Kelly shrugs. "How do gutter rats hear about anything?" He deflects her, hoping to draw her attention to his status as an irrelevant.

"Shit," she curses, "Everyone needs to watch their mouths and make sure you don't get followed."

Rees and the boy look guilty.

"You're Undocumented," the woman states. It's not a question, how could it be? Kelly never tries to hide it.

"I'm Kelly," he asserts and, to her credit, she blushes slightly.

"I'm Ruth.," She sticks out her hand for Kelly to shake. Apart from other Undocumenteds on the metro dig and the odd prostitute at Vi's, she's the first person Kelly's touched in months. Kelly wonders if she realizes. He tries to make his grip as loose as possible, it's never clear exactly what it is about him that offends people, but he doesn't want to get thrown out yet.

Ruth gestures him into a chair and returns to the front. She starts the meeting, "Welcome everyone," she smiles, "and especially welcome Kelly. For a long time, the lack of Undocumenteds was a blight on the authenticity of our Open Society, it's time that ended."

Kelly isn't that sure the other members agree with her, but no one says anything, and the meeting continues.

Mostly it's a mixture of people moaning about their lives and ranting about the caste system, usually the speaker suggests that the latter is causing the former. Clearly speaking to the converted here. Kelly listens carefully and tries not to watch Rees and his friend too closely. He gets a frisson of pleasure when he finally discovers the name of the transman: Ellis. When Rees speaks he refers to him as El. Kelly likes it. He likes Rees's voice, it has the same drawn-out timbre as Kelly's father. Rees's vowels are longer, his words more rounded than anyone else's in the room. It fills Kelly with a sense of home he hasn't felt for a long, long time.

Rees is clearly a minor celebrity at these meetings. Everyone acts all equal, but it's obvious that they all admire Rees the most, like he's come further than anyone else to get there tonight. Kelly gets it, but he can also see how Rees holds tightly to Ellis's hand throughout the meeting. Ellis is serene, he speaks well about navigating the Rotlic, the Resistance and the Brennerman residence. About learning to read and fighting to have the same opportunities as higher castes. He cries when he says he's come as far as he can with transitioning without surgery and how no doctor will sign off on the papers. Rees cries, too.

Kelly hurts for them suddenly. His pity rocks him to the core. He's trapped, too, in his overgrown body that's never clean. He gets in fights when he can't stand it anymore, gets drunk, gets fucked. Suddenly, it's Kelly's turn to speak, and he wishes he had more to say, or had had a chance to think about what to tell a group of Fruling activists listening to the dregs of their society for the first time. He tells them the worst things about himself. It comes out of him like poison. The stealing, the poaching, the disease, fucking strangers under bridges to keep warm, the chain gangs, the dank, illiterate poverty of it all.

He finishes, "Is that what you want to let into your idealistic open individualist haven of bullshit?"

There's a repulsed kind of silence as he sits back down.

Ruth clambers back to her feet. She thanks him for speaking. "We needed to hear it. You challenge us, and it's up to us to respond."

Clearly, they're not going to respond straight away, though, because the meeting ends there. People pack away chairs, still avoiding making eye contact with Kelly. He feels sheepish for having gotten so drawn in.

Ruth tells him she hopes he'll come again. He nods, but doesn't look at her. Rees and Ellis are shuffling towards him, hand in hand still, looking as if they're each hoping the other one will take the lead.

Eventually, Ellis lands himself in front of Kelly, close enough that he has to look up to meet Kelly's eyes. "You followed me," he accuses.

Kelly nods, "Sorry." He's not, though, and he doesn't sound very sincere.

"Since yesterday."

"Yes."

"Why?"

Kelly hesitates, he's not ready to explain yet. "I wanted to speak to you. To both of you."

"Okay, well, now you can," Rees interjects.

Kelly looks at him eye to eye for the first time. We could have been best friends, he thinks. Can he tell? Not likely. As open-minded as Rees might be about Ellis's Servitor caste, Kelly is lower still, and their shared history is too far back to mean anything.

"Can we go somewhere else?" Kelly asks, anxious to be alone somewhere where he has time to think and speak. He's not used to talking much at all, let alone explaining himself to people he desperately wants to like him.

Rees looks uncertainly at Ellis, but Ellis is still staring at Kelly, appraising him. His short stature should be disarming, but he fairly thrums with intensity. Kelly can see how Rees would be wrapped up in him. He almost wants to take a step back from Ellis himself, except that he doesn't want to move away at all. They maintain eye contact for another endless second, and then Ellis says decisively, "I know a place."

{{}}

Ellis knows Rees isn't convinced, but Ellis needs to know more about this guy who, yesterday, seemed to see straight through him and, today, in front of all those people, could speak so eloquently about his experience as an Undocumented. Ellis ran so close to that world himself, as Little Elize of Rotlic, darling child of whores, disguising herself as an errand boy to get out of those oppressive rooms. Kelly spoke straight to all of her greatest fears -- everything she's trying to get away from. Ellis could never have articulated it the way he did. Kelly's bitterness ripped at him, made Ellis realize how much he had compared to someone like Kelly, someone so strong, with so much potential, and still no way out. No agency. No Rees as back-up. No parents, not even the madam-mother Ellis has who still loves him as much as Elize was loved, perhaps even more.

Ellis leads the way to a small, derelict building near Rotlic, miles from Rees's place. There are foreclosure and hazard signs plastered all over it. Inside the door is a huge cage with a small gate. It's code-locked, but Ellis taps in the numbers, he's never forgotten a code in his life.

"El?"

"Don't worry, they're not for real. This was an old safe house of your Da's. It's sturdy once you make it past the kitchen."

They have to duck to get through the gate. Ellis grabs Rees's hand to steady him as they cross the one beam that constitutes the flooring of the first room. They both watch as Kelly follows them, he's double their weight, and the beam creaks somewhat, but he makes it far more delicately then Ellis expects.

Ellis leads on, there's a small staircase and one more code-locked door, and then they're in a wide space which is half office, half lounge. Ellis smiles, nostalgic for the days of the Resistance, even though he knows it was nothing but fear and danger at the time.

He throws himself on the ratty couch in the corner, feeling much more light-hearted despite the stranger in their midst. This was a time when Ellis knew what he was doing, even as Elize. That Elize had believed in their cause and had had purpose and brothers in arms. She'd been trusted and indispensable.

Rees sits carefully beside Ellis, and Kelly comes to a stop in front of them. He faces them as if preparing for interrogation.

Rees sounds his most haughty, his most _Fiirst_ , princeling of his mother's line when he politely enquires, "So? You have our attention Mr. Kelly?"

{{}}

"Just Kelly," Kelly grits out, and then realizes that's not the case. If he's going to tell the truth, he may as well start here.

"It's been just Kelly, or Kelly Nil for seven years, basically. I came from Bezatru. My mother was a Bezatrun, her father ran the Fruling branch of one of their newspapers. She lived here most of her life. They met when my Da was trying to get information for the Resistance -- in those early days when most people got caught. She gave him names, and he made sure they fled in time."

Kelly knows he sounds defiant but he can't help but be proud of his parents. They were brave, and they're dead now because of it.

Ellis is looking at him with piercing urgency. "What are you saying?" he asks. "Who were your parents?"

Kelly looks between them. He wonders if this is a trap of some kind. He doesn't know anything about Ellis, barely anything about Rees. What if they meant Kelly to follow them this whole time? What if they're part of the group that assassinated his parents for daring to defy caste and dishonor their family? He's gone too far, though, and he knows he doesn't believe it anyway, but he's spent too many years being paranoid about his secrets, about his identity, to shake off the worries completely.

He plunges on as best he can. "My father was Louis Fiirst-Schonvirscon." There, he said it.

The two of them are staring at him open-mouthed. The Schonvirscons are practically the first family of Fruling. Louis was a pretty lowly member on the family tree, but no part of that clan could be anything less than illustrious. Nobody could get away with claiming to be a Schonvirscon if they weren't.

Kelly takes advantage of their shock to keep talking, he's started now, and having said his father's name aloud for the first time since he turned twelve, he can't help wanting to give voice to his mother, as well.

"My mother was Vera Betting. My father was exiled for marrying her. He stopped being a Schonvirscon after that. He took her name. I'm Kelly Betting, by birth."

Both his listeners are hanging on his every word, fitting pieces of the puzzle together in their minds. Kelly decides to lay it all out there:

"My middle name is Vinz."

"Like my Da?" Rees finally finds his voice, but it's quiet, awed.

"My father spoke about him all the time, they were best friends," Kelly admits.

He looks from Rees to Ellis, asking for understanding, "I followed you because I was at Vi's, and I heard one of the girls call you Mr. Brennerman, and I just wanted to see the person my father had loved so much."

{{}}

Rees looks at Kelly, really tries to take him in. It's ridiculous to admit, but he's never been this close to an Undocumented before, and now he is, and, instead of being exciting, it's tearing Rees's life to pieces. First, he says his name is Nil, like he doesn't really exist on any ledger or database, and then two seconds later, he's claiming to be Fiirst. Like Rees, like Rees's mother. An entire caste higher than his father, a Graf. He's claiming he's named after Rees's Da. Rees doesn't really get how he could be Fiirst. The Schonvirscons are tall, sure, but there's nobody Rees knows who looks like Kelly does. Is it the Bezatrun blood? Would all the Schonvirscons look like this if they worked nights on the underground and had their noses flattened in fist fights? Rees can't imagine what it's like to be this guy, half-enemy, half-Fiirst, stuck in no-man's land, in the sewers.

"Can you prove it?" He asks, because he has to. This is too much to take on trust.

"I have my birth certificate. It's Bezatrun. Nothing I can use here." Kelly pulls it from the deep recesses of his jacket.

"That's a hell of a thing to be carrying around," Ellis remarks, but Kelly shrugs it off.

"Don't have a base safe enough to leave it anywhere."

A base. Rees's heart flips a little bit. This guy is homeless. Family-less. Sure, he heard that at the meeting, but it hits home now, when his family should have been the same as Rees's. Rees lets Ellis look at it first, and then he sees for himself, _Kelly Vinz Betting_. It's the Vinz that he gets stuck on.

"My Da never talks about him," Rees says, meaning Louis. He watches Kelly's face fall, closing off like Rees is rejecting his whole story. Rees can't help hurting for the guy. Down on his luck doesn't really cover it. His family were assassinated. Rees knows enough about recent history to know that. Kelly's shoulders hunch down, and Rees can't really bear to see him so crushed, so he continues quickly, "My Da doesn't really say anything about his past. It's like it just got ripped away. He's been sad about it forever, though. I was too young to remember it happening, but Ellis does. Even when we won the war, he was only happy for a while."

Kelly looks back at Ellis, voice stuttering, "You remember?"

"Sure," El says, "Your Da was here, in fact, right in this room. I was waiting for a pick up, I was a runner for the Resistance. I hadn't met him before, he was too high up for me, what he did was too secret at the time, but he was here, and Vinz pretty much tore up this place shouting at him, and your Da stood here and took it, and then he kissed Vinz and said sorry and left. Vinz cried. I didn't know what to do, I never saw him cry any time except that moment."

At some point, as they talk, Kelly starts to cry. Rees half sees Kelly and half sees his own father, twenty years ago, crying here, too. El is rubbing up and down Rees's arm, comforting him, but Rees sees how El's heart is reaching out to Kelly. He's a kid really, Rees thinks. Nineteen is not many years to hang on his admittedly large frame. He mostly looks world-weary. Rees has never met anyone like him.

He doesn't even think about it, "Come sit down, Kelly, please."

Kelly looks at him, bewildered. Rees doesn't think he's registered he's crying. He reaches out, draws Kelly down to the couch between them. The room is large and cold, but they sit huddled together in the corner.

"If things were right in the world, we'd have grown up together. We'd probably have been best friends," Rees tells Kelly.

Kelly chokes down something like a sob, or just surprise. "My father always used to say that."

{{}}

Ellis can't help shaking his head a little, a wave of tenderness for Rees sweeping over him. Rees is such an innocent in so many ways, but he always knows what to say to make people feel lighter. El knows he got it from his Da, but it's far more extreme in the son than in his father. It's what has been pulling Rees and Vinz apart these last few years.

El feels old all of a sudden. He has eight years on Rees, thirteen on Kelly. It's been so many years since Fruling won out over the Bezatruns and Independence was declared, but watching these two boys meet and slowly bond, it finally feels a bit like El might get his revolution after all. The Fiirst and the Undocumented. Almost like being separated at birth, their lives have been so different, but here they are together at last.

El watches as Rees leans in, places a careful hand on Kelly's shoulder. El is reminded of the first time Rees touched him, so tentative, so worshipful. El loves Rees's generous soul so much. Rees glances over at El, checking for approval. Kelly follows the look.

"You two are together," Kelly's voice comes out low and strained.

El places his hand on Kelly's other shoulder, but smiles across at Rees. "We're lucky to have each other."

"You are," Kelly says, "you are." It's so wistful, and so full of longing that Ellis can't help making up his mind there and then. He wants Kelly, he wants him for him and Rees. He wants to give Kelly everything he's been missing. Not that it's possible, but suddenly, Ellis knows, it's not just himself he should be fighting for. It's for Kelly too, and for Rees, so that he can have this and not risk his whole life in the process.

Ellis is running his hand up and down Kelly's side, watching Rees mirror his movements on the other side. After a few minutes, Kelly's head hangs forward, he lets out a huge sigh, "What do you want with me?"

El remembers how he felt when he saw Kelly for the first time, how threatened and obliterated he'd been. It doesn't feel anything like that now. Kelly is the one who is exposed before them. His well-muscled body could easily annihilate Rees and Ellis, but there's no chance of that happening. They are the ones that could end up taking advantage of Kelly.

It's Rees who speaks before El can process all his thoughts, "We want to give you what you want. Do you know what you want from us?"

It's Kelly's turn to stare at Rees, slack-jawed. He tries to form words, but he doesn't manage it easily.

"I want to be with you," he says at last, "I saw you in your room, but I didn't, I couldn't, I looked away, but I wanted to-" Kelly breaks off his sentence, embarrassed.

The smile that spreads across Rees's face is kind of smug. His eyebrow twitches. It's the kind of teasing, gleeful expression Ellis hasn't seen from Rees in a while.

"What do you say El? Could our love life do with some spicing up?" 

El rolls his eyes at him, their love life is great, thank you very much, but he can't disagree, either. He wants Kelly, he can see Rees does, too. El gets to his knees, rubs his hands up Kelly's thighs possessively. "Me first," he says, and smiles up at both the other boys.

{{}}

Kelly's entered a surreal, parallel world where people are interested in him and accepting of him. He looks down at Ellis on his knees in front of him, short hair swept to one side, a mirror of Rees, who is crouched on the couch beside him running his hands all over Kelly's back and torso. Rees's lips brush at Kelly's neck just as Ellis's wandering hands reach Kelly's crotch. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Kelly still feels like he's in the laundry shed watching these two argue and come together. He's not, though, he's here, between their hands.

It's not like going to Vi's where it feels like the Tricks are doing him a favour, even when he's paying. Ellis's eyes are warm and covetous. Kelly knows, somehow, part of him is about to be devoured; he's going to come out of this a completely different man. He doesn't really get it, what they want from him. It's like he could ask for anything, and they'd give it to him. He doesn't know why. He just wanted them to look at him and really see him. He hadn't thought about what came after that.

He decides to test out his theory, he puts his hand to Ellis's cheek - it covers the whole left side of his face -- and asks, "Will you put your mouth on me?" 

Ellis looks up at him, leaning the weight of his head into Kelly's palm. "I was definitely planning on it."

Kelly feels the prickle of what must be hard-won facial hair under his fingers, even though Ellis's face looks completely smooth, still.

"Take his cock out, El," Rees says, hands already fumbling at Kelly's pants button. He springs it at last, and then moves his hand away so Ellis can move in. Rees turns his attention to getting Kelly's jacket and vest off. Kelly cringes at how old and worn everything is. Rees and Ellis are so fresh and clean-looking. "You, too," he says to Rees, trying to even them out. Naked is naked, Kelly isn't ashamed of his body, although he's never thought to compare it before. He considers the scarred and battered landscape of his body even as he pulls his layers off to let Rees get at it. It's hard not to compare them.

Rees is beautiful, sleek, and smooth. He looks untouched. Ellis is looking, too, from his position between Kelly's thighs. He chuckles up at Kelly, "Try not to hate him, it's not his fault he has perfect skin. He bruises beautifully, you know."

Kelly swallows hard, because god, he had not thought about that yet, his hands are clumsy and awkward as they land on Rees's body, he can't think about damaging this landscape. His thumbs scratch over Rees's nipples and they respond quickly, hardening under his touch.

"Your hands look great on him," Ellis tells him.

"Don't you have something to be doing down there?" Rees asks Ellis pointedly.

"I'll start using my mouth when you do," he responds. Kelly feels his cock respond, too. Ellis has one hand down his pants in seconds, stroking firmly. Kelly groans at the sensation and Rees's mouth finds his, open and searching. Rees wraps himself around Kelly's upper body, holding on tight as they kiss and kiss and kiss. Ellis pulls his cock out and gets his lips around it, taking Kelly all the way down.

Ellis's hands snake round Kelly's ass, enclosing him. Kelly tries to keep one hand on Ellis's head while holding Rees with the other, he wants to be touching them both as they surround him. Rees is rocking slightly in his arms, his knees bent behind Kelly's back. He's completely off balance, kissing Kelly recklessly, trusting in Kelly's strength and his hands flung around Kelly's neck to hold him up.

Ellis is good with his tongue, savouring Kelly's cock, coaxing him closer and closer to climaxing. Kelly tugs a little on Ellis's hair to tell him to move back, he doesn't want to come yet. Ellis pulls off and flings himself onto the couch again. Rees manages to right himself and then straddles Kelly, he looks so young and so happy smiling down at Kelly. "Hi," he says, "Nice to finally meet you, Kelly Vinz Fiirst-Schonvirscon-Betting. Wanna put your cock in my ass?"

Kelly barks out a laugh, wondering how he ended up here with two such brilliantly mad people.

"Sure," Kelly says, because he does. He really, really does, and also, that smile is irresistible.

"Great," Rees says, and burrows his face into Kelly's shoulder, like he's overcome by his own ridiculousness. "Kiss Kelly, El, he's a great kisser."

El does, and it's both softer than kissing Rees and more insistent. Kelly likes it, loves El's clever, darting tongue, as much in his mouth as on his cock. Rees distracts him, blowing raspberries into his neck and grinding down on his cock at the same time. It's strange to be having such happy sex after baring his soul the way he did. All the ways he's imagined Rees Brennerman over the years, it was nothing like this.

{{}}

Rees loves this, loves being in Kelly's arms, watching him kiss El. Loves the way he can see El's body responding, how he can feel Kelly hard beneath him. El's hand runs down Rees's back, pushing under his pants. He has no idea why he's still wearing them.

"One second break for de-clothing," Rees pants out and then does it, leaping off of Kelly and wriggling out of his jeans, the hoodie is already long-gone. He pulls Kelly's pants all the way off while he's at it, and then clambers back on, leaving El to decide exactly what he's comfortable keeping on or taking off. There's a dizzy high at the moment of skin on skin, dick to dick contact that sends Rees perilously close to the edge, he grips hard on Kelly's shoulders, steadying himself. Kelly's shoulders don't budge an inch, hard muscle tight under Rees's hands. Rees shudders a little and tries to hide it by wriggling back on Kelly's thighs. Kelly's hands hold his waist tight, his fingers nearly meeting around Rees's back. It feels so good.

"I love your hands on me," Rees says, without thinking.

"Tell me if I hurt you," Kelly worries.

"You won't," Rees is sure of it. He moves one of Kelly's hands down with his to hold their cocks together. Rees moves Kelly's hand slowly, demonstrating the rhythm he likes, easy and gentle, for now.

Ellis's hand is back, fingers circling Rees's hole, "Yes, El baby, get me ready."

El's fingers are wet, he's lubed them up well. His other hand is on Kelly, exploring his chest. Just watching the progress of El's fingers as they trace a scar that runs horizontally below Kelly's heart, Rees can tell what El's thinking.

"I'll have one like this one day, two in fact," El's hand traces the outline of Kelly's well-defined right pectoral.

Rees levers himself up and down on Ellis's fingers, two fingers, while watching El's other hand play with Kelly's nipples and then run back down to the scar.

"You don't like your breasts?" Kelly asks and Rees wonders if he's a little affronted on behalf of breasts.

Ellis's nose scrunches in a cute, disgruntled kind of way, "They're just not really me," he admits.

"Should I be careful not to touch them?" Kelly asks, and Rees lands a quick kiss on his lips, out of gratitude for his sensitivity.

El still has his t-shirt on, so nothing's really on show, and Rees knows he's got the binder on underneath, in any case. Kelly would have a pretty hard time getting to El's breasts right now.

"Well, don't go out of your way," Ellis says "but its all fair game tonight, as long as it's not going to make you forget I'm a guy."

"You were a guy when I first saw you," Kelly points out, "I'm not having any trouble."

Ellis grins and kisses him. He presses his fingers further into Rees, he knows how to hit the spot alright. Rees moans out his pleasure, knowing Ellis likes to hear it, hoping Kelly does, too. From the way Kelly's hand tightens round their cocks, he probably does.

"Fuck, I'm ready, I'm ready," Rees calls out to them as if they weren't both within a hair's breadth of his mouth.

El releases his ass carefully, gives it a couple of friendly pats. He scoots up to the end of the couch, pulling off his pants as he goes. He plants himself on the far arm and opens his legs wide.

"Hands and knees, Brennerman!" El directs. Rees grins, he loves El like this, so toppy and gorgeous. Rees clambers off Kelly's lap and positions himself on the coach, length-ways, mouth hovering ready, up in El's business. He leaves it to Ellis to encourage Kelly into action. There's dip in the balance as Kelly lines up behind Rees, one leg knelt on the couch, one foot planted firmly on the floor. Rees feels like he's about to get the ride of his life.

"I'm ready," he says, just to be encouraging. His lips flutter over El's clit as he speaks.

El looks down at him, his dark eyes flaring, "Blow me."

Rees doesn't need telling twice. He sucks down hard on El, the familiar slide of tongue on wet skin. He gets his hands up either side of his head to hold himself up, bracing to feel the tip of Kelly's cock nudge at his hole.

{{}}

Kelly can't help but be stunned by the scene in front of him and the way these two have opened themselves up to him. He feels guilty because he knows he's taking advantage of their liberal attitudes. They probably don't realize how much more than sex he wants from them, now that they know who he is. Mere hours ago he would not have been able to conceive of this and now he feels fiercely possessive of it. Tonight is going to make it so much harder to keep living his old life on the edge of everything and everyone. It's easy to lose himself in this, though, as he stares down at the wealth of skin and heat on show. He is mesmerized watching Rees get to work on Ellis, hands on his hips, leaning into him, sucking noisily and murmuring encouragement as he goes. He clearly knows what he's doing, and Ellis arches and flexes above, looking close to losing control.

El catches his eye, smiles kindly at him, sensing how overwhelmed he is. Ellis pats at Rees's head, "Slow down, baby," he instructs. Rees quiets, contents himself with licking at El and humming gently. El reaches for something on the floor behind him, comes back up with a condom strip and a small lube packet. He leans forward over Rees to hand them to Kelly, scratching her hands up Rees's back as she moves back again.

"Lube for me, too?" Rees asks.

"Maybe," Ellis says, in the way that means yes. Ellis opens another lube packet himself and squeezes it onto Rees's fingers.

Rees rests his head briefly on Ellis's thigh. "Front, back or both?" He enquires, quite politely.

"Both, I think," Ellis decides, and Rees chuckles delighted, something about making good use of the bonus hole while they can. Kelly doesn't quite catch it.

He remembers he's supposed to be participating, too. He rolls the condom on and slicks up. His fingers reach automatically to Rees's entrance, to check he's ready. Rees groans at his slightest touch. Ellis looks on, entranced.

"Go on, Kelly, he's well-prepped. I knew you were going to be big, you're bigger than any of the dildos he's taken before, but he's ready. Aren't you, baby?"

Rees grunts out his assent, and his nod serves also to nestle himself further onto Ellis's clit. Kelly tracks the way Ellis's eyes contract, his whole body tensing as the energy builds in him. Kelly needs to be a part of it. Ellis is nodding at him, encouraging him, one hand stretches out towards him, reaching for his cheek, just as he'd seen Ellis do for Rees the night before. Kelly bows forward into Ellis's palm at the same time as he pushes into Rees. It's a benediction as much as anything else. Kelly takes hold of Ellis's arm and puts his other hand on Rees's hip, tries to listen for Rees's voice over the rush of blood in his head. Rees's ass is tight around his cock, it pushes back onto him even as Kelly tries to take it slow. Somehow he knows Rees's fingers are fucking into Ellis now too. Ellis's hand clasps tighter at his jaw, thumb pushing into his mouth. Kelly takes it in, letting himself be filled up and consumed by these two beautiful people.

He moves steadily in and out of Rees, making sure of his welcome, until Rees reaches back to his hip and tries to pull him in harder. It's El who whispers, "More," though. Kelly gives into it, folds himself over Rees's back and drives in, his left hand covers Rees's at El's hips and his right reaches under for Rees's cock, so that El's thighs are the only thing really holding them all up. They shake with the strain of it, but it's too good to stop. Ellis grabs on to the top of the couch to steady himself, but moves his other hand down Kelly's back, scratching up it like he'd done to Rees, kissing and sucking at Kelly's neck.

They all move selfishly now, taking for themselves everything they can get. Kelly can feel Rees pushing back on him, clenching around him, the sound of him gasping out his pleasure around Ellis. Ellis scrabbles at Kelly's back, hips moving quick and insistent, his voice is demanding more and encouraging them to give everything. Kelly can't hear the words, but the tone is everything he feels himself. He has no rhythm, no sense, really, beyond the imperative of his own impending orgasm. It tears through him violently, and he cries out as he comes, hand tightening on Rees's cock and mouth sucking at Rees's neck without his say-so. He tries to keep moving, stay upright, and stop shaking as the electricity runs through him, he hopes Rees and Ellis are taking their pleasure equally from him, too. He wants to listen for their climaxes, but it's all he can do not to black out and become a dead weight caught between them.

Gradually, he comes round, awareness seeping back in. All around him, it feels like bodies are trembling and panting, he realizes his hand is wet, plastered with Rees's come. He's glad. Slowly, Ellis lifts himself off Kelly's back, makes room for him to peel himself out of Rees, back into his own space, his own body. He feels disjointed by the lack.

Rees rolls off the couch, not making any attempt to get up or straighten out. "The floor, the floor," he says, his hands ushering them languidly. Ellis stretches up, cursing the arm of the couch as he goes and curls himself up against Rees between him and the couch. They both look up at Kelly, waiting. He goes down to them and lies on Rees's other side. He feels stiff and awkward all of a sudden, not knowing how he's supposed to behave now. He lies there for about a minute before Rees decides he's not happy with the arrangement and clambers over so Kelly's in the middle. The two of them fit themselves around him and hum contentedly. Kelly closes his eyes. He doesn't know how long they can stay like this, but he hopes it's a while.

{{}}

They sleep for a bit, or at least El does. He wakes up with a foreign feeling of certainty coursing through him, like his sleeping self made lots of decisions for him. He tangles his fingers up with Rees's as they rest on Kelly's chest. There's something he wants to say to Kelly and he knows Rees will be with him on this.

"You could stay here, you know, Kelly, no one's been here, not in years."

"Yes," Rees enthuses, "This could be our base, like a second home."

"And if I get surgery one day, I could stay here, too, while I recover." El sees no reason not to indulge in the fantasy. It's something to work towards, and it's better than being full of anxiety about the future.

"What would I do here?" Kelly asks, sounding a bit mystified.

"Make plans for the revolution?" Rees suggests, Kelly probably can't tell how serious he is, his tone is light, but El knows he means it. El agrees.

"We're going to need you, Kelly, to bring in other Undocumenteds, to speak out for people."

Rees nods into Kelly's armpit, "You're the voice."

Kelly laughs at that, a disbelieving kind of snort that Ellis wants more of, lots, lots more.

"What do you think? Come join us, Betting. The Revolution needs you."

"Yes, and we want you," Rees adds.

They're both up on their elbows now, looking down at Kelly. His face is moving between frown and smile and back again as he considers them.

"If you want me around, I'll stick around," he concedes finally. "We can see about the revolution as we go, perhaps."

He doesn't sound certain, but El is convinced. He looks at how their bodies are entwined, senses how comfortable they are with each other just hours into knowing each other. It's the simple fact that they are together like this, more than just El and Rees, but Kelly, too, and everything that they are, all wrapped up into one. The revolution already happened, the rest of Fruling just needs to get caught up is all.


End file.
